


Room 31

by ziparumpazoo



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: S6E05 Burned Up All My Tears, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziparumpazoo/pseuds/ziparumpazoo
Summary: Walt needs a moment after Lucian’s death.





	Room 31

**Author's Note:**

> A quick and dirty scene for tree. I gave it only a slight polish. Please forgive the autocorrects.

When Vic finally catches up with him, she finds Walt standing in the lobby of Durant Regional, looking lost. It’s the only time she can recall him looking that way.

Even after Cady’s accident, as he’d watched over his daughter, tense with worry, there’d still been an underlying current of anger in his stillness. As if he were only waiting for a change in her condition to give him a reason to finally act. 

But this time, he’s standing there with dust on his boots and his hat in his hands, staring down the hall where the ambulance attendants had wheeled the sheet-covered Lucian on a stretcher, and Vic can see none of that. He’s a cardboard cutout of a sheriff. 

She approaches him quietly, afraid to spook him, and touches his sleeve. "Hey. I heard over the radio."

Walt nods. "Yeah."

"You okay?" Her hand is still on his arm. He glances up from his hat to her for just a moment.

"Um..."

It's the only cue she needs. "C'mere."

Tightening her fingers in the heavy leather of his coat, she pulls him around the corner into one of the ER's treatment rooms, ignoring the nurse who glares at them when she’s forced to sidestep out their way. To hell with the lawsuit and how she is or is not supposed to been seen with him in public, he's just lost his mentor and one of his oldest friends. The man deserves a moment of privacy.

She shuts the door and hugs him. It’s only a second before she feels the tension leave his shoulders and his arms come up to hold on to her. A role reversal of that night after they’d escaped Chase's compound, when he'd held her and she’d finally let herself fall apart in his arms. It’s probably even the same room.

Walt presses his face into her neck and clings to her like a drowning man to a lifeline. She brings a hand up to the back of his head, strokes his hair where it falls over the collar of his shirt, and murmurs nonsense words into his temple as his shoulders shake once or twice. He follows with a heavy sigh and she knows he's trying to pull himself back from the grief. This moment may be needed, but there's still work to be done, a process to follow.

She lets him have a minute longer, then presses her lips to the top of his head and pushes him back so she can see his face. 

"You want me to take care of things?" She means the official parts, the forms and reports that needs to be filled out and filed in the the case of anything but a natural death.

Walt shakes his head. "No, I'll take care of it. I need to do that for him." He's still looking down at where her hands clutch his sleeves. 

Vic tilts her head. The late afternoon sun coming through the windows makes her feel like she’s standing in the middle of a vignette, everything that is not Walt unimportant and hidden in the shadows of the periphery. His eyes are moist, but clear and focused again.

"Take your time." She gives his arms one last squeeze and releases him. "I'm going to go keep him company. Until you're ready."

"Vic?"

His voice reaches her as she's slipping through the door. She turns, already most of the way out of the room. The sun backlighting him through the window leaves his face in shadow. She can't see what's written there, but nods anyhow and pulls the door quietly shut behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a nod to the bookverse and a certain room at Durant Memorial.


End file.
